Browse the gallery below to see paintings from the Puppets, Diva, and Cuban Queens series, beginning with my most recent work. You can see select Cuban Queens on display at Joan Shepp, where I’m the artist in residence. All of my work is available for sale and shipping. Please contact me for more information.

Hatted Ladies of Harlem

A fashion and art collaboration between Hat designer and proprietor of American Hats LLC, Reverend G. Morgan Thomas and artist filmmaker and fashion graphic designer Liz Goldberg. Liz comes from a family of hat makers and have always been inspired by church hats. I was inspired by Reverend Thomas’s unique hat design and bright colors for her hats and the vibrant ladies of Harlem.

Rev. Georgiette Morgan-Thomas founded and owns American Hats LLC. with her son Robert James Morgan III. American Hats LLC. is one of the only US hat factories dedicated to producing couture, dress, and casual womens and mens headwear for wholesale and retail purchase. She has been featured on the today show, in the entrepreneur, Grow with Google, AARP Magazine, and many local media programs.

Cuban queens

The Divas went in a new direction after a 2016 trip to Havana. I was so inspired by the vibrant colors, energy, and people I met that all the work culminates out of hundreds of live sketches made on the streets of Havana. The Cuban Queens were born, and they’ve been the focus of my work ever since. Filmaker Warren Bass and I turned hundreds of original drawings into an animated film. Each painting in my Cuban Queens series is based on the colorful personalities I met in my travels. The film has been shown in 30 international film festivals in 16 countries.

The era of the Diva

I cut the strings of the puppet master and set my Diva era free. The diva —the flamboyantly uninhibited female and the personal and political empowerment she represents. The paintings from the Diva series embody all sorts of contradictory, magical exaggerations of human behavior. I am fascinated mostly with the diva or divo in Latin cultures but I am also inspired by other theatrical affectations of the feminine such as 17th century (male) wardrobe, puppetry, trans worlds and myriad ramifications of the emerging alter-ego.

Puppets & Absurdist theatre

As a painter I’ve been inspired by puppet–like characters. My inspirations draw from Alfred Jarry’s forerunner of absurdist theater, Ubu-Roi, the buffoons of modernist playwright Michel de Ghelderode, and the symbolist and political figures of European puppet theater. There’s a degree of abstraction in the puppet. I find this to be a freeing force and use it to explore each character, their world and personality.